How to price your art.

There’s been a lot of questions recently about pricing art and I thought I’d share how I go about my pricing that I have developed over the years.

Pricing depends on your artistic abilities to fill out any potential orders. If you set yourself a price based on the quality of your example work but then can’t complete an order to the quality of your example work then there is a pricing discrepancy and should be reviewed.

These are the questions I have asked myself over the years to determine my own pricing.

Can I neatly cut out horse stock and place it on a background?

Can I get the horse stock to look like it fits on the background and look natural?

If you said yes to both these questions add 30K onto your start price. These two steps are the base fundamentals for getting a piece to work.

Can I confidently colour change a horse from the three base coats to another base coat? (Black, bay or Chestnut)

Can I add white markings (including roan or minimal paint)?

Can I alter the lighting of the horse and add highlights and low lights neatly?

Can I remove tack neatly?

Can I make the mane and tail look flowy and like hair (doesn’t matter if it’s smudged or painted).

If you can do the majority of these steps I’d list you as a tier two artist and price work between 80-100K

If you can do some of these steps price your work between 40-80k.

These are the basic fundamentals for art. Once you master these, onwards and upwards!

Can I confidently colour change any horse colour to the desired coat?

Can I add extreme white markings or fantasy style markings while keeping underlying details?

Can I fully rework a mane or tail to my desired aesthetic?

Do I have the ability to make the horse interact with items or animals in my piece?

If you said yes to most of these questions then I’d consider you a Tier 1 artist.

Base Price is 100K and going upwards based on ability and technical expertise.

The most important question is:

Am I confident that I’ll be able to fulfil most art requests/orders to my standard of work for customer satisfaction, for the price that I am asking?

If you are very confident in your abilities to meet and fulfil any orders and you have a pleasing aesthetic style I’d price art at 250K upwards if your shop is constantly filling up with orders.

Some things to keep in mind as you choose a price for your art.

Since coming back to HEE, considering my own ability and my amount of time to create HEE art, I always charge a fee for my time when doing a piece, this is included in the price. This depends on my available time for the foreseeable future and how sought after art is.

Everyone has their own distinctive style and growth, this is what makes the art community so great! Just because your style doesn’t fit the conventional norms doesn’t mean it’s not appreciated or valued.

A good understanding of anatomy and movement I find is the biggest difference in making an art piece good or great. Often times artists will need to repaint or add in details. Understanding the fundamental planes of the face and body is paramount in this. This is also important in body modifications.

Just because you can technically complete an order doesn’t mean you have too. Sometimes you have orders that goes against your artistic muse greatly. It’s alright to talk to the person and see if they will change their order or in some cases cancel.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask and I'll do my best to answer them.

Ethereal Eventers said:

Ahh, thank you so much!

However, I have a question.

I'm kinda stuck. I got passed the first 'stages' (30k). I can do 4/5 on the second (40-80k), but I can also do 3/5 on the 100k+.

So, I'm guessing to stay within the 40-80k range, but I would like some opinions xD

Ethereal Eventers said:

Ahh, thank you so much!

However, I have a question.

I'm kinda stuck. I got passed the first 'stages' (30k). I can do 4/5 on the second (40-80k), but I can also do 3/5 on the 100k+.

So, I'm guessing to stay within the 40-80k range, but I would like some opinions xD

Thanks, this is really helpful <3. I feel like I burn out when I only charge 35k for pieces that I spend a lot of time on. This gives me a checklist of things to work on :)

*taps finger to lip*

Hmmmmm.

I think according to this im in the 40k range. XD

Phantasm Farm said:

Ethereal Eventers said:

Ahh, thank you so much!

However, I have a question.

I'm kinda stuck. I got passed the first 'stages' (30k). I can do 4/5 on the second (40-80k), but I can also do 3/5 on the 100k+.

So, I'm guessing to stay within the 40-80k range, but I would like some opinions xD

Ethereal for the moment I’d stick between the 30-60K range.

While your cuts are nice and neat, your grounding needs more work and I think this is what’s holding you back. The main thing with grounding is to make sure the horse looks part of the landscape. This means that your horses have shadows or if they’re standing in water have reflections. The background tone and horse tone must also match. So if you have a blue themed background you colour balance or correct the horse so it also has a blue tone for example. Try to get the background lighting and horse lighting to match up as well as that will also have a huge effect in grounding.

It’s great that you’re practising and incorporating technical points from all the questions. The only way to get better is to practise. I would really try to master each bunch of questions before you go up a tier as it helps raise your confidence in your abilities as an artist while teaching you the fundamentals.

If you feel like you’re ready to raise your prices go ahead, I have raised and then lowered prices before so I can get the best value for my artwork. If you feel like you don’t get enough business after raising prices simply lower them again to a mid value between the original price and the raised price.